


The Last Stretch of Wilderness

by lesbomancy



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 01:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: A Guardian makes the final days of her trip to the Last City, meeting a prickly ally to help her along the way.





	The Last Stretch of Wilderness

Two months of travel on foot yielded little beyond exhaustion. The majority of the continent was behind her, as were countless deaths and failed attempts at getting Golden Age tech to behave. A few well-preserved cars and motorcycles got her far for short bursts but the lack of gasoline and constant harassment by Fallen took her two steps back for every step forward. Ghost kept apologizing, claiming that maybe it was her fault for drawing attention to these areas by scanning and searching.

Lex had to explain to her more than once that she did nothing wrong. Even with no memory, she knew that no robot or droid or synthetic life like Ghost should be that nervous or self-deprecating. They got along well when they established a few ground rules for talking about oneself and situations, mainly on the virtues of a positive self-image. It took Ghost a bit but Lex was great at it. Every time she snapped a rodent's neck or began skinning it for dinner she quizzed Ghost on all the things she was good at.

It helped, she thought, to quiz the floating orb-bot that favored encyclopedic knowledge on the mundane. She learned about how to troubleshoot most issues with firearms she'd never seen and how to run basic repairs on a Sparrow just because Ghost knew how. Then there was music. Lex really, really liked music and Ghost was good at playing it. Effortless as it may have been, Ghost always knew how to cheer Lex up when she was getting lonely, starved for contact and touch. At times she felt like the only person in the world, her only glimpses of others being the sound of jumpships entering orbit or the distant trails in the clouds that they left.

Bad luck had a way of wearing down one's soul.

But one day the Traveler came into view. A distant pearl in the day's sky, one that made it feel like maybe she wasn't the only one in the galaxy after all. Ghost had purposefully taken a path so that it would be revealed by a cliffside - she had an eye for the dramatic reveal and it worked. What little morale that Lex had from eating and living off of the land and using an old wire rifle she acquired from the corpse of a Fallen sniper bounced back from the brink. At a time her trust in Ghost was rapidly deteriorating but this was all she needed to feel silly in not trusting the being that brought her back from a silent, formless state of entropy.

Eventually the Traveler was obscured by a long mountain range, one that felt like an eclipse on hope, a blockage from the destination itself but there was a significantly sized hole in the mountain. littered with the remains of what looked to be a train station sitting only a mile outside the hole itself.

Ghost said they knew where they were going, that this long tunnel had big enough spaces for Lex to squeeze through and if they kept going long enough they'd come out with a vision of the city's wall. She recognized some of the writing on a sign nearby the tunnel entrance, but it wasn't a language she understood. Ghost was able to help out, then give an ornate history lesson on what she knew about 'train stations.' It wasn't the most stimulating dinner conversation for Lex but as she feasted on well-preserved emergency supplies in an old truck military truck in the parking lot it seemed appropriate to learn as much as she could about the time before rust and decay took what was abandoned.

In the morning they faced the tunnel and, once again, ventured into the dark unknown. As Lex mounted a turned-over shipping container she spoke up loud enough for her Ghost to hear her.

"You should tell me of the feasts I have ahead of me. What kind of cuisine do they have in the city?"

"Oh, food! I know a lot about food. Not what it tastes like or how it goes down or anything but I totally know a lot about it because I met a group of Guardians on a supply run and one wrote a cookbook! A whole book on cooking! It was his passion, so I totally read the entire thing in a night before continuing my search for you. I shall start from chapter one! Its one hundred pages long and details 'finger foods.'"

Ghost looked over to Lex and she could swear that the Ghost's eye was narrowed playfully.

"...don't worry. They're not made out of real fingers. Anyway, Chef wrote that the distinction between an appetizer and finger foods was mostly presentation, function, and size. To that end..."

Lex knew what she bargained for, though she had to stop Ghost several times for explanations. Whoever 'Chef' was, they picked an appropriate name and maybe put too much time into gathering knowledge on food for someone who was functionally immortal. Or maybe not enough time. Lex wasn't one to enter snap judgments but after her Ghost was narrating page six hundred and twenty-two she wasn't sure which was worse. It didn't help her hunger or the overwhelming darkness of the tunnel, but it did at least make things seem a little more normal as she climbed through maintenance access points, over rubble and through rusted, ancient train cars that have been stuck in darkness for centuries.

Days passed inside the tunnel, almost a full week thanks to her having to switch to adjacent tunnels, maintenance hatches, and part rubble. Hardly glamorous, though the suit she awoke in was pretty durable and it saved her from more than one sharp edge or near cave-in. The lack of anything in the tunnels was reassuring to a degree, though more than once Ghost was worried about something trying to settle in them. Ghost reassured herself constantly, knowing it was so close to the Last City that the other Guardians would do something. She was right, too, as a few chambers had Fallen corpses and some old, dusty machinery that hadn't been used in years.

Ghost was good at letting her know when it was sundown and sunrise, though she wouldn't have known unless it was pointed out. Navigating the labyrinthian maze that the tunnels were a new low, one which was only bearable because of her Ghost's flashlight. When light from the end of the tunnel was visible once more she had already listened to a history of the Last City and the Traveler, or complete enough versions that her Ghost knew. Words and phrases still felt similar in places and she asked her Ghost to keep track of them and make sure she didn't forget. When she got settled in, she'd do her best to research who she was or at least why these things resonated with her.

Lex squinted involuntarily as she pushed through an old iron gate, freeing herself from the ancient employee only entrance. The valley before her dipped down far from the base of the mountain where snow was sprinkling gently from above. The bridge that connected the train to the tunnel far to the right was damaged, leaning precariously. She wondered where it led and if the early settlers in the city used it like she did.

The Traveler seemed impossibly large, almost as much as the walls surrounding it that Lex had never seen before. Her whole body paused once it was in view, her mouth hanging open at the scope of it. She couldn't see the beginning or the end, the City was simply a wall in a valley that she couldn't see over. The sounds of jumpships flying to and fro began to fill her ears as she got closer and went further down the mountain. More and more of the world was swallowed whole by the wall. It was unreal, an impossibility to her, as she thought it was only a wall like those she'd seen in her travels with her Ghost.

Only a few miles from the City's walls, she was stopped by the sound of a rifle charging up. Suddenly her ghost had disappeared from view but somehow Lex knew it was still with her. Probably in her backpack, as dumb as it sounded. Lex lowered her rifle and held her trigger hand up, instinctively not wanting to get shot in the head. Again. It really, really hurt like hell. After a few moments the foliage parted and out of a bush came another Guardian, the first she'd ever see. It was a Hunter, dressed head to toe in camouflage more like a soldier than some holy warrior.

"You're off the beaten trail," they said in disbelief. Their thumb moved and flicked the safety bag on their rifle. It powered down audibly. "Lost?"

"Looking for th-..."

Lex was cut off by her own Ghost. It seemed like a trend that wouldn't stop anytime soon.

"Yes! Hello! This is my Guardian! She's only two months old, give or take, give or take. We, whew! We... we're going to the Last City!"

The Hunter seemed more than a little agitated at the bobbing Ghost in front of their mask, hand raising to swat at it apathetically like a fly. "I get it. Buzz somewhere else - more quietly."

"Oh, sure. Sure. Sure, sure, sure." Ghost floated back to hover beside Lex's head. She could tell that Ghost was practically hurting herself by containing the excitement.

"Before you ask," the Hunter held one hand up to silence further questions. "It's two day's walk back to the city walls, so you can ride with me. My ship's small but you can sit with the cargo. Rule number one, two, and three are as follows: no questions, no small talk, no gasps of wonder or terror. If you don't like my flying then I'll hit the cargo release and you can tell the forest floor about it when your Ghost picks you back up. Clear?"

Lex furrowed her brow. It was hardly a good first impression though she wasn't in the mood to complain. She loved all the physical activity but she was half-starved, exhausted and just wanted to crumple on the floor for a few days after drinking so much water. Just an unbearable amount of it.

"Clear," Lex answered succinctly.

"Good! Her Majesty is just a hop and a skip through there, in a clearing about a half mile away." The Hunter lifted their rifle and gestured to Lex's left side. By the time Lex had turned to look the Hunter was already walking past them at a quick pace. It didn't take long for Lex and the Hunter to arrive at the clearing, the small V-shaped jumpship looking more comfortable than a bed.

The Hunter climbed on the side, gesturing to a hatch in the side that had popped open. They climbed into the cockpit and began pre-flight checks as Lex climbed into a cramped space near the engine. The Hunter's voice echoed, likely over some sort of intercom, and addressed Lex as she settled in.

"... the shit you pick up when you do pest control," the Hunter said ruefully. "My name's Phoenix. The ship is Her Majesty. I don't want you on my team so don't ask once the Dadguard has you set up and ready to go. Skids are up in five seconds, so hold on. Or get a concussion. Like I give a fuck."

Somehow the rattle of the ship and the overwhelming boom of the engines did anything but keep her awake. Lex fell asleep, huddled against a container of food and ammunition, with her Ghost resting on her shoulders like a parrot. It may not have been first class, or how she thought she'd enter the Last City, but it was an experience she'd never forget.

Before she fell to sleep with the jumpship acting like a rocking baby's cradle she heard her Ghost whisper one last thing into her ear:

"I'm having a lot of fun."


End file.
